Evidence is before us all.
If you wish to trust them, that's your call. I have no problem with that.
6
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If you wish to trust them, that's your call. I have no problem with that.
I don't know but the other players haven't been better after lockdown, so who are supposed to play? I would like to see Van De Beek but the others deserve to be benched.
At this rate, he will leave on a free for the second time.
No seriously, if there are any doubts he is match fit start VDB. You know, the only player we bought this window and can replace him?
VDB at 8 as opposed to 10? I think Ole sees VDB as a 10 at the moment.
So is that Pogba's fault? Isn't that on Ole?
Or Ole thinks making him fit quickly will benefit the team in long run, hence taking risk and playing him
Matic and Fred both deserve to start ahead of Pogba, based on recent form.
McTominay’s our only CM who might be playing as badly as him. Obviously, expectations are lower for McT. With good reason.
What recent form? Fred was poor after lockdown and hasn't been particularly good in his recent cameos either. And Matic isn't in competition with Pogba, he should start whenever he is fit since we don't actually have a backup for him.
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Not gonna lie that was probably one of his worst games but he wasn’t fit.
Fred hasn’t been particularly good, no. But not particularly good beats absolutely fecking shite. Which is what Pogba served up today (and in his last start) There’s an extraordinarily low bar for a Pogba alternative and Fred/Matic both comfortably clear it.
If thats evidence for you... Then I have no words
He's never stand out for France or Juve. Have Juve missed him since he left ? No they havent just like we won't when he leaves again
If he is not fully fit, that is on Ole. You get him fit in training and in match practice behind closed doors slowly introducing him in first 11 giving him 30 minutes and improving on that. You slowly build both his fitness and confidence.
Am saying "if" as some of his performances were pretty bad even when he was fully fit before. Whatever it is, we need to solve it one way or another as this kind of performances shouldn't be acceptable.
Personally, I think he isn't fully fit as I don't remember seeing him THIS bad.
Be honest for one second, no one deserves to start and it's indecent to talk about recent form. Pogba should be benched, we agree on that but the player that will replace him didn't earn it, it will be by default.
This is very simple. Fred has played better than Pogba so far this season. If we pick the team on merit he gets his place. That’s as close to a factual statement as you can get in a discussion like this.
That's arguable because he has also been tragic and we haven't been better in midfield with him. The only thing that he has to his credit, is that Pogba has been shoddy for more minutes.
Fred hasn’t been tragic. Pogba has been tragic. Fred has been ok. It’s a crying shame that “ok” is good enough to keep our most expensive player ever out of the team but that’s where we are right now. We keep plumbing new depths.
I agree with Ole on this. He has been out for a long time having had the virus in the summer, no wonder he'll have a slow start to the season. He looks focused and grown up in his demeanour and clearly wasn't satisfied with his own performance. I can forgive him for a game like that knowing that with the right attitude he'll be back to his best in a couple of weeks mark my words.
We’ve never had a player this divisive before, surely? In fact, he might be the most polarising footballer I’ve ever seen. It is interesting how he has something of a cult following though. Even when he puts in a 6/10, he’ll have a small group of people purring over him and rolling out the superlatives.
As for today, he was absolutely shite. Even his most ardent fans cannot suggest otherwise. They’ll quickly sweep this one under the carpet though. Like it never happened.
As for today, he was absolutely shite. Even his most ardent fans cannot suggest otherwise. They’ll quickly sweep this one under the carpet though. Like it never happened.
Berbatov.
As soon as OGS came in he was lo linger first choice. He was only first choice under Jose. I would suspect our nutrition/ fitness people have changed since then?
I disagree, that’s just spin from Lukaku. We know the guy can’t take any sort of criticism. His fitness issues were because he couldn’t be arsed and didn’t work hard enough.
Anyway the point is, I don’t think there’s an overriding behind the scenes fitness issue.
Pogba didn’t play much last season, had a number of issues, has not had a pre season and recently had coronavirus. He’s come off in both games so far, so clearly working to get his fitness back. It’s not ideal, but he needs to be cut some slack.
We don't know how bad the virus was for him. It's a respiratory illness that will most likely have lasting effects even weeks or months after recovering from the initial infection.
No way of knowing for sure. He looked really bad.
He's not fully fit currently, obviously. Ole is clearly trying to play him back into fitness/form because he is still one of our best players and comfortably our best midfielder.
Agreed.
I hope that come next year we are not embroiled in the same debate as to when Pogba will come good. Pogba has to start delivering and start pretty soon.
I don't really want to criticise the guy too much because he is basically the player I've seen playing for Juventus, and I generally like him as a person. I just hate the fuss about him that many people create naming him easily our best player, PL's best midfielder, etc., when he never proved that, not even for just few months let alone one season or more. It's just so unfair to the likes of Rashford, Martial, etc. when people use Pogba as our "clearly best player".
I agree. I think that by labelling him world class, it puts expectations into peoples heads about how he should perform.
Awful again.
If he's not fit, I suppose it excuses him somewhat.
But he was shocking.
If he's not fit, I suppose it excuses him somewhat.
But he was shocking.
World class
sometimes
sometimes
If someone comes up with 90 million offer for him we should take the money and run.
He's not a DM. Either play him as an 8 or play Fred.
I tend to agree with this, both the criticism and praise goes too far most of the time. As I mentioned above, I consider him one of our best players (As in top 3) and comfortably our best midfielder. I'd consider Martial probably our best player and Pogba around the same as Rashford. Not to say that any of these are the best in the league in their positions but they certainly have to be categorised as OUR best players.
Was just thinking that as well. We looked miles better with Fred in there that Pogba.
IMO we should be giving Poba 20-30 minute cameos until he's fully fit.
He may not be fully fit but he's nowhere close to being the star CM we need. He just doesn't do enough for a so called elite midfielder. If Paul Scholes was half fit he'd still put in ten times the performances, I'm sick of the excuses.
Oh please, always the victim. It's never him, he has been here what 4 years now how many months has he been on form? Embarrassing.
He’s unfit and in poor form. Pogba is definitely better than what he’s showing right now, I just fear his ankle injury hasn’t taken away some mobility. Teams have learnt that pressing us gets results as neither he or Matić are quick or agile enough to ride it out.
The problem here is that both Matic and Pogba like to hold onto the ball when pressed, but neither are quick and agile enough, this glaring weakness also applies to our CBs too!
Ole needs to find a solution to find a better balance, perhaps replace Matic with Fred and Lindelof with Bailly.
Well he’s not, is he?
We bought a reasonably good player, who for some reason has carried around a reputation as a much better player than he is...
I think he’s been relatively mediocre for 4 years and is capable of more but criticising him for the past couple of games is pretty harsh - zero preseason, injured for months before and had C19...he shouldn’t be anywhere near the first team at the minute.
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